The veto of
these bills by
the President.
There can be no question that the President was entirely correct in this contention. The Fifteenth Amendment was as yet no part of the Constitution. It had not even been proposed by Congress to the "States." It is very questionable whether a majority in Congress could have been found, at that time, in favor of making such a proposition, much less the required extraordinary majority of two-thirds. And until the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified as a part of the Constitution of the United States, Congress had no power to exact such a concession, or anything like it, from any "State" as the price of the admission of representatives from it to the Houses of the National Legislature. And even since the Fifteenth Amendment has become a part of the Constitution, the Government of the United States cannot prohibit such changes in a "State" constitution, unless the deprivation of suffrage is made on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
The President also called attention to the fact that no way was provided in the bills whereby the "States" should signify their acceptance of this "fundamental condition" of admission to representation in Congress, and that no penalty was prescribed for a violation of the condition. Did Congress mean that, in case of any violation of its "fundamental condition," it would throw the "State" back under martial law, and proceed to reconstruct anew? That was a question which might well be asked in view of what Congress had already done; and it was a question which was not calculated to allay uneasiness in the minds of the people in the Southern communities.
Finally, in the veto of the Arkansas bill, the President expressed his very serious doubts whether the new "State" constitution had been ratified by the electorate created by the Acts of Congress for that purpose, since a section in that constitution prescribed that no person would be allowed to vote upon the ratification of the constitution who had not previously taken an oath to the effect "that he accepted the doctrine of the civil and political equality of all men, and agreed not to attempt to deprive any person or persons, on account of race, color, or previous condition, of any political or civil right, privilege or immunity enjoyed by any other class of men," thus adding a new qualification for registration and voting to those prescribed in the Reconstruction Acts of Congress. There is no question that the President was right about this, too. And there is no question that this new qualification was entirely null and void, in so far as it applied to voting upon, and registering to vote upon, the ratification of the constitution itself, unless we ascribe constituent power to the convention which framed the constitution, instead of the power of initiation only. We know that no constitutional convention has, or then had, any such powers in our system. It was nothing more or less than a palpable usurpation of constituent power when the convention in Arkansas presumed to add this qualification to those prescribed by Congress for voting upon the ratification of the constitution itself. Of course it would have been lawful and regular for the "State" constitution to make this additional requirement for voting in all future elections, after the constitution prescribing it should have been adopted by the electorate created by the Congressional Acts, although the requirement itself would have been unreasonable and oppressive. But for the convention, a mere proposing body, to ordain this new qualification for voting on the question of the adoption of the constitution itself was a political outrage of the first order.
The vetoes
overridden.
Congress was not, however, in a state of mind to listen to any suggestions from the President, no matter how correct and important they might be. Both Houses promptly, almost mockingly, passed the two bills over the President's vetoes.
Such of the legislatures created under the new "State" constitutions as were not already in session were quickly summoned to assemble, and by